Grimoire: Oryx Collection
by snipars
Summary: The vault is shattered, Crota purged, Black Heart pierced, and Skolas dethroned. Now, The Taken King sets his sights on the last Bastion. Stories, Grimoire-style entries and Journals meant to make a narrative leading to The Taken King expansion. Rated T
1. Chapter 1: Ishtar Terminal

Access Key needed, format follows

*************3317

Authenticating…

Successful! Welcome back to The Archive, please enter your Trinomial Database Key

{-}{-}{-}

[Oryx][Dead][King]

Authenticating…

Successful! Hello, Jorge Zachary Pluto, it has been 399 days since your last login.

[Check probes 183-233]

Probes 184, 201, 233 conditions changed

[Expand]

Probe 184:

Disturbances in local neutrino detectors, neutrino-tao-muon particle detections up 643.04% expected. Camera Triggered { /}

Probe 201:

Saturn gravitational fields disturbed. Camera Triggered { /}

Probe 233

Local physics not applicable. Emergency Generator activated. Thermal input tampered. Camera Triggered {/imgo88r93y9x/}

[Display images]

Displaying…

[Broadcast message]

Please enter Broadcast Message content

[Oryx nears]

Broadcast Sent!

[Log out]

Goodbye Jorge Zachary Pluto

…

…

…

Access Key needed, format follows


	2. Chapter 2: Encrypted Banner

Tick tock.

Shackled I am. Prison Chains.

Wolf banner stands.

Tick tock.

But time has no meaning.

Eons of torture, timeless pain.

Hallowed echoes and screams constitute who I am.

My very tissue is agony

My blood is terror

And You

You cannot even begin to understand

Tick Tock

I endured, I stood strong. Oryx broke me.

My kalend reads Cycle 66061

Yet here I am now.

The cycle is 32.

Why can't you understand?

Oryx broke me, my mind is gone.

Even the strongest will fall when taken.

They fall to the inexorable march of time.

And when they are nothing but grief and sinew and sorrow.

Oryx sends them back.

Oryx sent me back.

And I was back where I had started.

Corrupted by the darkest of the darkest.

Time Itself.

Tick Tock.

Even the machines understand this.

Time is a force to be worshiped.

Revered. Feared.

Cowered from.

Their black heart, powering their evil through the faucets of time.

But Oryx

He controls it

Contorts it.

Father Time.

A marvel with 100,000 arms swings his scythe

Tick tock.

Dark God.

Numb, mindless, appendages.

But I am not like the others, yes?

I believe I am a message.

He brings forth an army that embraces death.

And we are promised.

Take to your death another's light, and your clock will be reversed. You will know Elysium.

I do not believe a house has ever been raised that does not fear death

But fears not being able to take you with them.

Ever.

Tick tock.

So here I am.

Even now my essence fades.

My very existence strains space.

I am a paradox

I am re-taping over my own story.

Prison chains contain me, yes?

But soon I will be taken again.

And this time I will not be left with freewill.

I will be an instrument of Oryx.

And perhaps then you will understand oblivion.

I'll know it twice.

Tick tock.


	3. Chapter 3: Xandron I

They called it Patience and Time, whenever they entrusted it with me before going on their way, a rare example of hospitality in the flaming charbroil of the Venusian frontier.

I was tracking a vex signature, something old and powerful and intensely dark. I followed it across half the planet, starting from the Ulfran plateau and cornering it finally in a valley within the Ovda summits.

Large expanses of land, if you were willing to think vertically.

There was a Vex construct here, jutting from the hill. It's funny how symbiotic their architecture can look with nature. It's almost as if it… belongs. I couldn't tell you much, but I could tell you this thing was timeless.

Looking upon it was one thing, but ascending it to follow the signature was a different story altogether. So many stairs, far too steep for my sparrow. I did, however, become substantially more adept with a glide.

Anyhow, I guess the thing finally had enough of me sniffing up its rear, and it manifested itself before me, at the top of the steps within a semi-enclosed atrium.

Keep in mind, I was armed with a Mos Ganon V, a fine hand cannon, and a MG18A In Harm's Way machine gun.

So standing there before me, one of the largest Minotaur's I'd ever seen. The thing reeked of darkness, electric blue skin plating. And as if the name had been within me all my life, waiting to be placed I knew.

Xandron, Time Lord. He wielded an extremely powerful Aeon Maul. His skin brimmed with the power that comes from the voids.

He roared, or what I assume is a vex roar, and teleported into the geometric façade of the temple before me. Clouds of data roared into our time. Energy crackled and snapped as two timelines were melded together, a flock of harpies took its place.

I wish I could iterate how it happened, but I can only describe it as a snapping. Snap snap snap, the foes before me crumbled into nothing. That was when a Murder of Crows appeared before me.

Their leader made it clear he had no quarrel with me, that we had the same common goal. It was then that he whistled to one of his followers. A lean awoken male trotted over, Reef gear and emblems, but more… suited for a type of combat only described as Spec Ops. It was then that the alpha Crow asked this man to gift me his marksman rifle Patience and Time.

* * *

Xandron fled shortly after, his signature lost to time, and that was when the schism occurred. The wall imploded against itself, stone and energy crumbling back to expose an ancient vex portal. Brilliant images of pure light imposed themselves. Red sandy dunes unmistakable for mars. A beautiful alien garden, or the Black Garden I'd later learn. A hive chamber, with wizards tampering furiously with a vex teleportation gate. The final image I saw were Gate Lords kneeling before Xandron, in his hands resting on an orb. Vex units by the trillions whirred to life in the distance. Darkness coursed through his body into the orb, and my portal fluctuated. He wasn't creating portals, he was showing me my future. He had torn a gash in space and time, and he knew that it was going to be in my future to close it.

Xandron, Time Lord

I backed from the window into time, and had my ghost transmat me to my ship. I plotted a course for earth and etched two words into my new marksman rifle.

Closing Time, I knew it my purpose.

* * *

I needed to see more, feel more, know more. Usual warlock problems, sure, but in this instance these notions were not some intangible concept to work towards. No, I needed to enter a death trance.

I would terminate myself, and In death as the universe reveals itself to me answers would come. Then ghost would pull me back, or so is the hope.

Death trances are considered taboo for good reason, warlocks erasing themselves from the fabrics of both space and time causes serious strain to both relations among the city and among other guardians themselves, understandably.

In my quarters I meditated, my body relaxed into a deep calm, and my heart slowed, my breath slowed. Energy moved through my body with less haste, in my brain I thought nothing but death. My body radiated life.

Then a pause, an infinite pause, as life met the boundary of death. With one last force I crossed the threshold and died.

Terrible things became known to me, things I CANNOT even begin to tell you. The will of the universe and the forces at play transcend what is accepted as knowledge and accepted as death.

Them she appeared to me and I understood brimstone and oblivion.

We were on mars, coordinates [Redacted], and she tore through my soul. She said terrible things of the nature of life and death, darkness spewed from her mouth and light churned in her eyes as they all greyed together and I lost all love I had ever known.

Within the Black Garden, coordinates [Redacted] where time a river can flow two different directions at once, she whispered to me all the answers I looked to know and I was destroyed. My curiosity left me, shredded into nothing as all that could ever be wondered was suddenly known. I felt purposeless and for the first time in my life I felt nothing but an unimaginably infinite sadness for ever wondered and felt envy at the thought of being a god.

Then I was in the company of the Hive, coordinates [Redacted], and she appeared to me once more. She said nothing, but placed her hand on mine. I felt the Hive, raging and spewing darkness and she spewed upon me the eternal grey from the mix of both and as I shone through diminished with light. For all their might, and anger, and will, their rage did not serve them. I lost Rage in that moment, it fled from me, embarrassed, knowing that I now knew it possessed nothing within me.

Then I was Xandron, and she appeared to me again, and I felt it. I was an unimaginable force, but I was also an echo, doomed to repeat for all eternity.

I was Xandron, I had experienced all those things that he had experienced.

As I realised this she smiled, and her smile burned away everything until I was with her and her only. It was then that she looked upon me and spoke one last time, and this last time is not just an unexplainable knowledge, I remember her words, her meaning, as she showed me her soul.

"Dark and Light are eternal, your kind believe a division has to be made. Right and Wrong. Good and Evil. Light and Dark. I have dealt with many kinds among my travels, but your kind are the first to do this. Look upon my flesh, there is no schism among thee light and the dark that constitutes me, only harmony."

Her face was love and life, then it was hate and death. Within a second I felt the most joyous thing and the most terrible thing and I realized that what was most ideal was everything in between.

With flames bursting from my soul I screamed back into existence.

* * *

After the fire-fighting frames left, and I formally apologized to the Vanguard for burning down half of Hall 23C, the clarity that came to me… well, you'll understand as I go on.

It's hard to explain something you can't even explain, but I can tell you the results of my death trance, what it meant to my mission.

Timelines are merging together, all through the common gash that is Xandron. Xandron had died and come back to life, as I now had, but somehow he carried more than vague thoughts and emotions. No, he carried powers and secrets to the mainframe of time.

Xandron, the three times he died and came back, he left behind 3 parts of himself as he moved forth with more abilities gained from cheating father time. The first time he died he lost his love. The second time he died he lost his curiosity. The third time he died he lost his rage.

But these three things as they left him, manifested into physical quanta.

See? I'm explaining it to you and it makes no sense, but it all clicked together perfectly for me.

Ill just continue and see if you catch the drift.

* * *

I followed the coordinates etched into my brain and I ended up skirting Olympus Mons. Scouting out the area I found that a Cabal forward operating base had been set upon the coordinates. It seemed out of place but it also seemed important. That's when I asked Triostyn to tag along.

She's always had a thing for big game and these cabal are the biggest game in the system. That cloak you're wearing now? Same one she wore that day. She dropped about 50 of them, and using Closing Time, I put about 13 in their place. She's a fine hunter, and a damn dependable one too. Saved my bacon when the Devils pushed into my position during Twilight Gap.

Anyhow, with the patrols cleared, we moved into the structure. Easy pickings inside, what little resistance we met seemed distracted. Everything was unusually empty topside, but there was a freight elevator. Ghost popped it open, and we were met with a harvest.

The Cabal were mining something Vex underneath the F.O.B, so we rode it down.

The freight doors opened and we were greeted by a excavation site. Machines whirred softly as Cabal processors and other machines dug, clawed, and analysed the atrium we stood in now.

The deja vu hit me like a Skiff. The inscriptions on the walls, the vex architecture, even the color and wear of the stones and alloys were identical to the one Xandron appeared to me on the Ovda summits.

Triostyn swears that next, I walked towards the wall, disintegrating as I drew closer, and as soon as I disappeared completely I began to reappear, coming back together and drawing away holding a gilded rod glowing with power. I take her word, that's what happened at that exact moment in that place and time.

However what I experienced, what happened to me is more simple than that. I went into another timeline.

As I approached, I began to feel… submerged. 'Flow of Time' suddenly took on a literal meaning as I was superimposed into a different fragment of the universe all together. Through my eyes I began to see pockets of a different reality, my skin exploded in sensation as martian atmosphere left me. I was no longer walking towards a wall, I was nearing a churning mass of purple void energy.

"Oh shit", I thought, "I'm about to be vaporized". I kept walking forwards, after all I wasn't supposed to die yet, right? My hunch proved correct, as a walkway seemingly composed of energy and light suddenly broke through the torrent. Unabated, the transition finished and I found myself essentially drowning.

My eyes darted up quickly. Sunlight streamed towards me from above, water, definitively water, began soaking into my robes and punishing my armor. I swam up leisurely taking in my surroundings, after all I had a sizeable amount of air in my vacuum-grade warlock regalia. Vex architecture lay deserted below, above machines still moved about the water. Fish-like creatures and other aquatic life frequented my sight.

As I neared the surface, the portal died out behind me. It better turn back on when I come back, was my only thought. I broke the surface, and grabbed onto some stone. Climbing up, I realized i was on a island, a massive coliseum looming above me. An explosion boomed, brilliant arcs of light shot into the air.

I was thrown back, but caught myself with a glide. I regained footing and sprinted towards the noise.

Drawing into the clearing, I saw what I needed to see. Energy Pillars were drawing in massive amounts of light and atmosphere, now have been activated. They stood in what I assumed to be the four cardinal directions, and at the center stood Xandron. His plating what black, and circling him were likewise Gate Lords.

I quickly took to the shadows cast by pillars around. This much vex muscle would leave me just a grease stain if exposed. I materialized Closing Time, and through the scope did the only rational thing a warlock would do. I observed and recorded.

The pillars began to glow painfully. Xandron was lifted into the air, his body began to glow white. A grey conflux appeared below him as the pillars climaxed.

CLAP! My eyes were seared, when they refocused, Xandron was gone, but the conflux was now brimming white with energy.

This wasn't just a ritual, this was a death trance. Xandron was now erased, dead, obliterated. But the vex trapped his death in that conflux.

I couldn't help but be amazed, the Gate Lords must have felt the same way because they kneeled. The conflux whirred and flashed periodically. This continued for about an Hour until it stopped abruptly.

The conflux burst into nothing as a roar of Void energy pulsated into existence. Xandron shot out from it roughly, skidding across the stones. A glowing rod shot clanged unceremoniously to the stone beneath the conflux and then the energy disappeared. Most notable right off the bat, his plating was now a rich navy blue. He stumbled to his feet. His face awash with rage.

This was it, I realized, his love had been erased. Now he was angry, and he needed answers. Obviously I was in a time in the past when vex still possessed these types of emotion. He shouted something in vex chatter, and that's when all hell broke loose.

Gate lord turned on Gate Lord. Torch hammers and Aeon Mauls spewed as two distinct sides became clear quickly. With Xandron or against Xandron. Data crackled and whirred and more Vex entered the fray. Hydras, harpies, minotaurs, goblins and their archetypes, even other Gate Lords.

Vex war, on this scale, was terrifying. And they just kept on coming.

I'd never see a battle just… come into existence this fast. It really goes to show you both the speed of vex communication and interconnectivity, but also their ability to process and make huge decisions instantly.

I needed to get that rod, but how? My heart hammered as my ears were solid noise, I cowered behind my pillar.

* * *

To be continued… Part 1 of 2


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